U.s. Visit Of Sinn Fein Leader Provides Clinton His Own Independence Day

February 06, 1994|By Steve Daley.

WASHINGTON — The Republic has survived the 48-hour, state-sanctioned visit of Gerry Adams, the bearded Irishman who heads Sinn Fein, the lawful political arm of the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

The Clinton administration granted Adams a two-day visa, a document he had been denied eight times over 20 years by American governments loath to annoy our pals the British.

Prime Minister John Major's Conservative government reacted with much brow-furrowing to President Clinton's decision, setting off what the U.S. ambassador to Britain described Wednesday as "a big tussle."

As displeased as they were with Clinton, the British were dumbstruck by the warm public reception given to Adams, who spent most of his time riding the New York City media circuit.

The furor over Adams' visit demonstrates the hypocrisy America has exercised with regard to "the troubles" in Northern Ireland, and the spell cast over the colonies by powerful Anglophiles on both sides of the Atlantic.

Since the current cycle of violence began in Northern Ireland in 1969, American presidents have thrown their arms around assorted brutes and killers, from Panama to China, from El Salvador to Angola to Iraq.

In recent months, there has been room in the White House Rose Garden for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and time for a presidential chat with Syria's Hafez Assad, whose terrorist credentials are well-established.

The world and the State Department sit idly as Serbian brigands masquerading as a legitimate government choke the life out of Bosnia. But, until last week, Sinn Fein was not entitled to a public hearing.

Evidence of the double standard applied to the forces pledged to ending London's rule in Northern Ireland is widespread.

For example: Gathering little notice last week was another State Department decision, this one to issue a visa to former Cambodian Gen. Sin Song, who has been accused by United Nations investigators of involvement in death squad activities.

Song was national security director of the Cambodian government installed by Vietnam, a government that lost an election last May. Cambodian legislators insist Song helped lead a violent secessionist movement that ultimately failed.

Song was given the visa, by the way, so he could attend a National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday.

The British, meanwhile, dance with their own demons. Although the British government has been talking with Adams for three years, his voice, by law, cannot be broadcast inside Britain.

So when Adams appeared on CNN last week, his voice was dubbed over in England, a nation which has routinely denied fundamental human rights and due process to Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland.

No one is entirely sure why Clinton was emboldened to grant Adams the visa.

In the 1992 campaign, as he stumped in the New York Democratic primary, Clinton told Irish-American voters he favored a special envoy from the U.S. to examine the situation in Northern Ireland.

After the election, on the advice of many in his party and in the diplomatic community, he dropped that idea and stopped talking about the British in Ireland altogether.

It's possible Clinton was somewhat abashed by his own behavior, although the shattering of campaign promises does not appear to hang heavily on the presidential conscience. But in allowing Adams to visit, Clinton reportedly overruled the State Department, the CIA and the U.S. Embassy in London.

Another theory posits that Clinton may hold a grudge in the wake of the conduct of Major's government during the 1992 American campaign.

At that time, a team of Major's political aides advised George Bush's campaign chiefs on the manner in which they were able to stave off an expected defeat in early 1992.

Major had won a surprising victory over Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, whose populist campaign centered on the dismal state of the British economy.

The outcome of the American election later in 1992 set some in England to worrying that the "special relationship" between the two countries would be threatened.

In the past, however, Clinton has consistently demonstrated the pro-British myopia and cultural fascination with all things English that has characterized the American political class since World War II. The man went to Oxford, after all.

Whatever his motivation, it appears Clinton took a note from Thomas Jefferson, who in 1787 wrote that the English "require to be kicked into common manners."